Night falls. It doesn’t rise like the sun in the morning. This is a definite image of oppression. Offred’s descriptions and thoughts here seem to have a different kind of weightiness. The mood of the text, as with her own mood, is becoming much more gloomy. Offred also offers an oppressive image of the moon, a rock in the night that is oppressive, like the expectation of her having a baby for the regime. A student could trace the different internal feelings Offred projects onto the moon throughout the novel. Searchlight-moonlight, an artificial moon. An artificial need for procreation. It may also seem in her very manufactured, artificial world, she’s trying to flesh things out—make them more human or more meaningful. Humans often posit human characteristics on inanimate things when feeling lonely. (Think of Wilson in Castaway.) Nick is gaining more importance for her. Though he isn’t a troubadour (another reference to the Middle Ages, but with non-religious, poetic significance), he is an object of desire. She speculates if he can be a replacement for Luke. (In the end, she decides that he...